A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across the National Library of Scotland's handlist of the contents of the historical novelist Dorothy Dunnett's personal and literary papers. To tell the truth, I was looking for House of Niccolo fanfiction, and somehow ended up with a 66-page archival catalogue.
A happy accident, because the handlist makes for fascinating reading, especially the sections to do with her historical novels. I can promise you that there are professional historians who make less organised research notes. What particularly fascinates me is the chronologies--both of historical events, and of events in the novel. When I did my MPhil, my supervisor encouraged me to make a chronology as part of my research on Merovingian letter writing. I had never been asked to do so before and abandoned mine before it got very far; but it is a method of organising research notes which I would like to try for future projects. In novels which are as intricately plotted as Dunnett's keeping track of who was where, when seems like it would be an absolute necessity; and I love the idea of getting a peek behind the scenes.
Then there are the character biographies! Especially for the House of Niccolo series, seems to have created a biography of each major character. These character studies include a file I really want to see:
197. Notebook entitled “Sweet Scorpian” with notes on Nicholas and reaction of others.
Three quarters of the way through Spring of the Ram, one of the things I am loving is how Nicholas' character is revealed by the reactions of his fellow merchants--and how, like the blind men and the elephant, each of them has a piece of the truth and thinks it represents the whole.
Even just reading the handlist is an amazing peek behind the scenes of her writing--hopefully one day I'll have the chance to look at some of the files and learn from them.
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